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Stomping your own pickled cabbage - bare feet work best
By Tan Weiyun |
February 11, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE ancient traditions of cooking winter delicacies at home are fading as the convenience of buying ready-made food items becomes popular. But all is not lost in some Hangzhou homes, Tan Weiyun reports.
As the Chinese Lunar New Year approaches, everyone is stocking up on traditional foods to serve for family reunions and celebrations.
Busy people these days, especially young folks, mostly shop for ready-made foods, but some old-fashioned Hangzhou residents still keep the ancient tradition of making winter delicacies at home.
Toiling over homemade food and putting in love and energy make the dishes sweeter, so they say.
They start well in advance of the new year that falls on Sunday this year.
Cabbage curing and pickling
A rainy week has finally come to an end and residents in Yuquan Neighborhood, an old community, are busy pickling cabbages in their courtyards.
It's quite an eye-opener to see their method - stomping vegetables barefoot in a giant vat. Bare feet (clean) are best. Sandals are for sissies.
"We've been married for 39 years and I have stomped the cabbages for 39 years," says 64-year-old Ma Achun as he tramples layer on layer of cabbages sprinkled with salt. His wife Deng Tiaojuan keeps adding cabbage leaves.
Each winter before the Spring Festival, the couple makes two vats of pickled cabbages, 75 kilograms in all.
"It requires lots of physical strength, so I do the most important and difficult part," says Ma. "Women are usually weaker - the vegetables they make will probably go sour."
These days most of the cabbage stompers are well over 50 years old.
"Young people only care about when to eat - they can't and won't help make pickles," Ma says.
Ma shares his secrets for sweet-smelling pickled cabbage:
Choose older cabbages; fresh ones don't have as much taste.
Remove the leaves. Let them dry in the sun for two days until the leaves wilt.
The stomping:
First put salt in the bottom of a vat and place a layer of cabbage leaves on top.
Stomp barefoot (make sure your feet are clean), but if you insist on shoes, flat-heeled sandals are okay.
Stomp until cabbage juice comes out.
Then sprinkle another layer of salt and place another layer of cabbage laves on top.
Continue stomping, sprinkling and layering until the vat is full.
Around 100kg of cabbage require around 2kg of salt.
Sausage making
Pork sausage is a must for Spring Festival.
The pork should be carefully selected, not too fat, not too lean. If it's too fat, the fat will melt and the sausage will be reduced to a string after days of exposure in the sun; if it's too lean, the meat will taste dry.
It is quite a sight to see long strings of sausages hanging in the windowsills of each household.
Yu Shifu is busy at his sausage stall in the crowded Zhanongkou Food Market.
People queue up from 6am until closing.
Yu is something of a celebrity for his sausage-making skill. Each year after Lidong (the day marking the beginning of winter on the lunar calendar), he opens the small booth to process traditional sausages.
He only operates the business for two months, but over six years he has a loyal clientele.
"I have an annual appointment with my customers," says Yu proudly. "They bring pork here every winter and ask me to make sausages to their taste."
The key to making delicious sausages is finding the right proportion of lean meat and fat. The ideal proportion of lean meat to fat is 9:1.
After mincing the pork, he adds his "secret recipe" of sugar, salt, MSG, spicy pepper, rice and liquor.
"But I won't tell the exact amount and ratio," he says.
Customers can have their sausages tailor-made, according to taste.
"If you like sweet sausage, I add more sugar," says Yu. "If you like spicy, I add more hot pepper."
Sweet fermented rice
Most people buy bowls of fermented rice - that's much easier than doing it yourself - but Zhang Ruihua in the Dongshannong Neighborhood always does it herself.
The brewer's yeast is very cheap, around 1 yuan (14 US cents) per packet. The glutinous rice grown in northeast China is the best because the rice grains are bigger, says Zhang.
The rice is soaked in cold water for around seven hours, then steamed.
"Cooking in a bamboo steamer is best - that makes the rice smell good," she says.
She puts yeast into the cooked rice and mixes until it's smooth. Then she makes a small hollow in the center of the rice and lets it ferment for seven days.
"Homemade fermented rice looks and tastes nice, and there is no worry about any food additives," Zhang says proudly.
As the Chinese Lunar New Year approaches, everyone is stocking up on traditional foods to serve for family reunions and celebrations.
Busy people these days, especially young folks, mostly shop for ready-made foods, but some old-fashioned Hangzhou residents still keep the ancient tradition of making winter delicacies at home.
Toiling over homemade food and putting in love and energy make the dishes sweeter, so they say.
They start well in advance of the new year that falls on Sunday this year.
Cabbage curing and pickling
A rainy week has finally come to an end and residents in Yuquan Neighborhood, an old community, are busy pickling cabbages in their courtyards.
It's quite an eye-opener to see their method - stomping vegetables barefoot in a giant vat. Bare feet (clean) are best. Sandals are for sissies.
"We've been married for 39 years and I have stomped the cabbages for 39 years," says 64-year-old Ma Achun as he tramples layer on layer of cabbages sprinkled with salt. His wife Deng Tiaojuan keeps adding cabbage leaves.
Each winter before the Spring Festival, the couple makes two vats of pickled cabbages, 75 kilograms in all.
"It requires lots of physical strength, so I do the most important and difficult part," says Ma. "Women are usually weaker - the vegetables they make will probably go sour."
These days most of the cabbage stompers are well over 50 years old.
"Young people only care about when to eat - they can't and won't help make pickles," Ma says.
Ma shares his secrets for sweet-smelling pickled cabbage:
Choose older cabbages; fresh ones don't have as much taste.
Remove the leaves. Let them dry in the sun for two days until the leaves wilt.
The stomping:
First put salt in the bottom of a vat and place a layer of cabbage leaves on top.
Stomp barefoot (make sure your feet are clean), but if you insist on shoes, flat-heeled sandals are okay.
Stomp until cabbage juice comes out.
Then sprinkle another layer of salt and place another layer of cabbage laves on top.
Continue stomping, sprinkling and layering until the vat is full.
Around 100kg of cabbage require around 2kg of salt.
Sausage making
Pork sausage is a must for Spring Festival.
The pork should be carefully selected, not too fat, not too lean. If it's too fat, the fat will melt and the sausage will be reduced to a string after days of exposure in the sun; if it's too lean, the meat will taste dry.
It is quite a sight to see long strings of sausages hanging in the windowsills of each household.
Yu Shifu is busy at his sausage stall in the crowded Zhanongkou Food Market.
People queue up from 6am until closing.
Yu is something of a celebrity for his sausage-making skill. Each year after Lidong (the day marking the beginning of winter on the lunar calendar), he opens the small booth to process traditional sausages.
He only operates the business for two months, but over six years he has a loyal clientele.
"I have an annual appointment with my customers," says Yu proudly. "They bring pork here every winter and ask me to make sausages to their taste."
The key to making delicious sausages is finding the right proportion of lean meat and fat. The ideal proportion of lean meat to fat is 9:1.
After mincing the pork, he adds his "secret recipe" of sugar, salt, MSG, spicy pepper, rice and liquor.
"But I won't tell the exact amount and ratio," he says.
Customers can have their sausages tailor-made, according to taste.
"If you like sweet sausage, I add more sugar," says Yu. "If you like spicy, I add more hot pepper."
Sweet fermented rice
Most people buy bowls of fermented rice - that's much easier than doing it yourself - but Zhang Ruihua in the Dongshannong Neighborhood always does it herself.
The brewer's yeast is very cheap, around 1 yuan (14 US cents) per packet. The glutinous rice grown in northeast China is the best because the rice grains are bigger, says Zhang.
The rice is soaked in cold water for around seven hours, then steamed.
"Cooking in a bamboo steamer is best - that makes the rice smell good," she says.
She puts yeast into the cooked rice and mixes until it's smooth. Then she makes a small hollow in the center of the rice and lets it ferment for seven days.
"Homemade fermented rice looks and tastes nice, and there is no worry about any food additives," Zhang says proudly.
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